


none

by orphan_account



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 02:51:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14535084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: none





	none

No food, strange animals, and no direction whatsoever. While most people may feel as if such a reality would be used as a form of torture, Lois Lowry’s characters saw this as their only escape. Jonas, a twelve tasked with being the new Receiver of memory, uncovers untold secrets about his community and makes the impossible decision to flee with Gabriel, a new child destined for euthanasia. With endless days on end, Jonas rode the foreign paths to Elsewhere, a community known to celebrate individuality, all while being hunted by search planes and fearing the worst for both Gabe and himself. After many unforgiving days, though, that both Jonas and Gabe slide down a snowy hill into the backyard of a warm, Christmas cottage; the very one that Jonas has received a memory for. While most feel that Jonas and Gabe survive, it is obvious that Jonas and Gabe did not find Elsewhere and did not survive because Jonas is envisioning the memory of Christmas, because Jonas is dying of starvation and hypothermia, and because the music Jonas hears is just an echo.  
Certainly Jonas and Gabe did not survive and reach Elsewhere because Jonas is seeing the memory of Christmas that The Giver transmitted and his vision of Elsewhere is a hallucination. Because Jonas was given a memory of the exact cottage, the bare thought of even a chance of such an event being real can be passed of as just a phantom of what he hopes to see and pushed aside as a final grasp of a memory meant to keep both Jonas and Gabe warm. The thought of the cottage being a final wisp of a quickly fading memory can be easily be considered because Jonas had been transmitting warm memory just seconds prior.  
He settled himself on the sled and hugged Gabe close. The hill was steep but the snow was powdery and soft, and he knew that this time there would be noice, no fall, no pain. Insided his freezing body, his heart surged with hope. (...) He forced his eyes open as they went downward, downward, sliding, and all at once he could see lights, and he recognized them now. He knew they were shining through the windows of rooms, that they were red, blue, and yellow lights that twinkled from trees in places where families created and kept memories where they celebrated love. (Lowry, 225)  
Because Jonas to suddenly stop transmitting memories to keep warm is extremely unlikely, especially without knowing what lay ahead, it is clear that the cottage was not present, but instead the result of hope.  
Although Jonas’s vision of the Christmas memory clearly indicates that he is hallucinating and does not survive, the fact that Jonas is dying of starvation and hypothermia definitely reveals that Jonas and Gabe did not survive. Throughout Jonas and Gabe’s journey to Elsewhere, it was extremely clear that the seasons were changing and progressing into Winter and becoming extremely hard for the two to go on. Known to have used memories of warm events, such as days at the beach and relaxing days in hammocks, The Giver clearly portrayed that both Jonas and Gabe had been barely holding on by a thread.  
But his mind was alert now. Warming himself so briefly had shaken away the lethargy and resignation and restored his will to survive. He began to walk faster on feet that he could bo long feel. But the hill was treacherously steep; he was impeded by the snow and his own lack of strength. He didn’t make it very far before he stumbled and fell forward.  
On his knees, unable to rise, Jonas tried a second time. His consciousness grasped at a wisp of another warm memory, and tried desperately to hold it there, to enlarge it, and pass it into Gabriel. His spirits and strength lifted with the momentary warmth and he stood. Again, Gabriel stirred against has as he began to climb.  
But the memory faded, leaving him colder than before. (222)  
Having been known to have major difficulties due to subzero temperatures, Jonas and Gabe had also faced starvation. As winter rolled in as Jonas and Gabe proceed onto Elsewhere, food had become more scarce as the departed from fields and blankets of snow began to fall. Jonas had used the memories of lushes banquets and feasts fit for a king to keep himself satiated, though only to become hungrier than ever before once the memories faded away.  
But there were desperate fear building in him now as well. The most relentless of his new fears was that they would starve. Now that they had left the cultivated fields behind them, it was almost impossible to find food. (...) He tried to use the flagging power of his memory to recreate meals, and managed brief, tantalizing fragments: banquets with huge roasted meals; birthday parties with thick frosted cakes; and lush fruits picked and eaten, sun warmed and dripping, from trees.  
But when the memory glimpses subsided, he was left with the gnawing, painful emptiness. (216-217)


End file.
